


I'm tired of thinking what if, what if, what if

by MABlake



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Doppelganger, F/M, Fluff, Love Confessions, Multiverse, Post-Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 07:00:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28467204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MABlake/pseuds/MABlake
Summary: If she’s honest with herself, being trapped with Bellamy in another world isn’t a bad thing at all.Once Christmas rolls around, it gets even better.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 14
Kudos: 88
Collections: Bellarke-Mas Secret Santa





	I'm tired of thinking what if, what if, what if

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OnlyZouzou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyZouzou/gifts).



> Title from What if by Rhys Lewis.
> 
> A little note: Let's pretend that getting money is easy and they didn't have any trouble with it.
> 
> Mature just to be on the safe side.

Finding another version of herself from another universe is to be the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to Clarke in her entire life.

She knows that’s not a statement she can make lightly. Not after living in an unforgivable Earth for more than six years, traveling through space to a place ruled by body-snatchers, and knowing what she knows about the Anomaly. It doesn’t make sense for her to freeze in place at the sight.

She shouldn’t be surprised. She knows she shouldn’t. After all, Hope warned them about the things they’d find once they started traveling through the universe, but it’s still a shock, to see another person who looks just like her, but somehow doesn’t feel like her. 

Her hair is curlier, her clothes are clean and she’s using _makeup_. 

Most of all, this Clarke looks... _happy_. Her eyes don’t have the same shadows she finds whenever she looks in the mirror, and she knows they are not the same person, but it brings something peaceful to her heart all the same, to know that in some other world she’s happy.

She’s in the middle of the street and the place is full of people desperate to buy things on Christmas Eve, and she looks around her, but Octavia is nowhere to be seen. The snow keeps falling around her as she adjusts her coat even more tightly around her body, checking that her scarf still covers half of her face as she follows the steps of her doppelgänger. 

They walk for half an hour before the Clarke from this universe enters a house in a really beautiful neighborhood. She knows now, after spending time on this Earth, that it must be a really expensive place, but she doesn’t have the time or energy to worry about that. She needs to get back to Bellamy and tell him that she already found someone who may help them figure out where his sister is, that they’ll probably find her in that house. It’s almost Christmas, after all, and families used to spend their holidays together, so it wouldn't be surprising if she finds the three of them sitting at the same table for the night.

She just hopes Clarke really knows Bellamy in this world.

* * *

Clarke knows she’ll never be grateful with Russell Lightbourne for stealing her body and making Bellamy and Madi suffer when they thought she was dead, but she can’t change it, so instead she’s thankful for all the knowledge his daughter left behind. She knows that the things they saw in the movies they had on the Ark couldn’t have prepared her for this trip, and she’s already worried about all the things that could go wrong; she doesn’t want to add something else to that list.

The struggles they’ve faced up until now are not enough to make her feel defeated. And, if she’s honest with herself, being trapped with Bellamy in another world isn’t a bad thing at all. Spending so much time together after more than six years apart almost feels like a gift for Clarke, and she knows that if they weren’t looking for his sister in the first place, she’d be able to enjoy every little moment. As it is, she spends most of her time worrying about Bellamy while he worries about Octavia.

Traveling from city to city for weeks has been tiring for her and she can’t even imagine how hard it must be for Bellamy. She’s been trying to make it easier for him, but she knows there’s not a lot she can do to ease his restlessness when the only thing he wants is to find his sister and go back to his friends in Sanctum. 

Clarke just wishes she could make everything better and a little more manageable for him.

She’s watching the TV in their hotel room when Bellamy finally returns hours later, dragging his feet with every step. He looks exhausted as he takes off his coat and when he catches sight of her, he sighs and sits down next to her on the bed, letting his head fall into his hands.

She moves closer to him until she can feel the heat emanating from his body. She’s afraid to ask, because there’s only one thing that could make him react like this, but that’s not the reason she doesn’t say a thing. She just rubs his back, trying to comfort him as best as she can until he finds his voice.

“I found Octavia,” he finally says, sounding as defeated as he looks. 

“I take it she’s not really your sister, then,” she whispers, a little hesitant.

“No, she's from this world.” He shakes his head, and then lets his hands fall to his thighs, looking at her. “I’m sorry,” he says out of nowhere, voice rough. “I figured she wasn’t my sister and didn’t even think about finding out where is the other version of me—or yours, for that matter.”

She knows the reason he feels so guilty about not finding this other version of him, of course. One of the last things Hope told them before they left Sanctum was that the only thing they needed to do to go back was to take something that belonged to their doppelgängers and the Anomaly would take care of the rest.

“Don’t worry about it. I found—myself,” she says, slowly, like tasting the word. She snorts. “That sounds weird.”

He gives a brief and strained laugh. “Everything about this is so fucking weird.”

“Yeah. I guess it is.” She smiles a little, returning the hand that was rubbing his back to her lap. “Do you want to leave right now?” she asks, soft.

He nods with a tired sigh, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah. She’s not here, so we should probably keep looking somewhere else.”

She nods and stands. “Let’s get our coats, then.”

* * *

Before they left Sanctum, Clarke thought the easiest part of traveling between worlds would be leaving them and jumping to the next one, but when they arrive to the beautiful house she saw earlier after following her doppelgänger, she realizes that she couldn't have been more wrong.

Instead of the sound of her voice, the only thing welcoming them when they get closer it's silence.

She frowns, meeting Bellamy’s gaze. For a second, she thinks that maybe this isn’t really her house or that the other Clarke already left, but the moment she peeks through the window and sees them, all her doubts vanish and she has to stifle her gasp against the palm of her hand. She can't draw her gaze away. At her side, Bellamy tenses. 

There’s a huge tree in the middle of the living room and the house is full of decorations, but that’s not what catches her attention at all. No. Kneeling beside the tree is the same woman she saw entering the house hours ago, and on the other side of her Bellamy is holding a baby with a smile while she looks fondly in his direction. Then, that version of Bellamy turns towards that Clarke and looks at her with so much love it’s hard to breathe for a minute.

She feels like she’s seen that expression before with the man at her side, and she knows that the surprise and pain are probably all over her face, so she refuses to let Bellamy see it. Not when she’s been successfully hiding her feelings for him all this time and it’d only make him feel guilty about it all.

Before she can open her mouth to tell him that maybe they should wait to come back when the house is empty, the woman inside speaks.

“You know there’s nothing wrong with leaving him in the crib for a little while, right?” There’s so much love in her voice that Clarke has to close her eyes, trying to block it out, but it’s just—impossible. “Nothing is going to happen to him.”

“I know that, it’s just—I can’t stop looking at him.”

“I know. But you’ll have to learn. We’ll go to your sister’s tomorrow, and everyone wants to meet him. You’ll have to share him with everyone else.”

The others inside keep talking in their own little world, but the moment her eyes lock with Bellamy's, she knows they are both thinking the same thing, and they stand as quietly as they can, trying not to get caught and walking away from that perfect house where their other selves are incredibly happy.

They walk for a while in silence until they feel it’s safe to stop. Clarke leans on the closest wall, trying to recover from it, but she doesn’t think it’s going to be as easy as it sounds. She feels colder than ever, and she’s barely holding herself together as it is. 

Bellamy doesn’t say anything either and when she looks out of the corner of her eye, his gaze is firmly on the floor and he’s clenching his jaw with eyes closed.

She traces his face with her eyes, her fingers aching to touch his jawline, his cheekbones, _his everything_. But she refrains. It’s been an adjustment, to see him without a beard, but more than weird, it’s just—so hard. It brings back memories of things they lived before Praimfaya, things she held onto while he was gone, little touches and smiles that became her entire world for years, words that made her hopeful for a future she now knows she’ll never have with him.

She wonders what’s going on in his mind. She caught him fighting with Echo before they left Sanctum and he’d confessed during the last few weeks that they'd broken up that night. 

Is he thinking about her now? Missing her? He told her that it was the right thing to do, that there wasn’t a future for them, even when he found Octavia and they went back to their people, but she never asked what he wanted. She was too scared to ask, but now she can’t help but wonder if maybe he wishes Echo was in that house instead of her. 

She wonders if he feels repulsed by the scene they just witnessed, even though he wanted her once, even though he used to look at her just like that.

The thought hurts more than she thought it would, and she immediately clears her throat, walking away from the wall.

“Hey.” His voice is a little rough, and she turns to him. 

“What?” she asks, proud of the way her voice comes out steady. 

“Maybe we should talk about this.”

She swallows. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Clarke,” he says, reaching out for her, but she recoils from his touch, closing her eyes tightly. There’s a moment of silence where the only thing she can hear is their breathing, but she can’t see his expression. _She doesn't want to_. 

She knows what she looks like, though. Hair messy, and tears trapped between her eyelashes, threatening to fall down her cheeks any second now. She doesn’t want him to see all the things she’s been hiding from him for years now, feelings he doesn’t want anymore, but he’s making everything harder to keep locked.

She looks down, blinking away her tears before looking up at him. His face is full of concern.

“We should go,” she announces, blinking the pain away. “We—” She clears her throat, forces her voice to come out steady. “We both heard them. They won’t be at their house tomorrow and we can enter then and take what we need so we can leave.”

He looks hesitant, but he still nods. The silence stretches between them, but she can’t break it. She doesn’t have the strength for it. Not when she just saw all she’s ever wanted in a mirror she can’t live in, when she knows she’ll never have the chance to get it. 

They walk back to the hotel in silence, and this time Bellamy tries to break it once or twice, but she just hums in response and he ends up giving up, understanding that she doesn’t want to talk at all.

She knows she doesn’t deserve something like that. She’s known that for years, even though some part of her tried to convince her brain that maybe one day she would be able to get it.

It was silly of her, to think like that before. But she knows better now. 

She thinks they won’t have to talk about it, but once they close the door of their room, he looks like he’s finally tired of the heavy silence between them and turns to look at her, running a hand through his hair and licking his lips. “Did you ever...”

She doesn’t know what he’s thinking, but when he doesn’t finish his question, she asks in return, “Did I ever what?” 

He clenches his jaw. Whatever it is, it looks like it’s hard for him to speak about and she waits with baited breath until he finally sighs and asks, “Did you ever love me?” 

Something catches in her throat. Probably all the feelings she’s been trying to keep close to her heart so he wouldn’t notice. Everything threatens to spill from her lips in a flurry of words. “Why would you ask that?” 

He rubs a hand over his face. “I don’t know,” he answers helplessly, chuckling a little, but just when she thinks he’s laughing at her, she sees his hand wiping under his eyes and her heart aches for him. “Would you just... answer?” 

“Yes,” she whispers, too soft. 

He swallows loudly. “Yes to answering the question, or...”

“I loved you,” she admits, even though it’s not the whole truth. Even though she knows she still loves him and will keep on loving him until the end of her days. It doesn’t feel like the right moment to say something like that. She doesn’t want to burden him with the weight of a love he doesn’t want.

The only word that comes to her mind to describe the expression on his face when he hears the words is purely, devastating heartbreak. His eyes cloud and his lips part, as if he can’t find the words he needs right now. She’s about to say something else about how it doesn’t have to mean anything when he turns around and punches the wall.

She rushes to his side, already taking his hand between hers and inspecting the damage in seconds. “Why did you do that?” she almost shouts, desperate.

His eyes are closed when she looks up at him, but the anguish in his face is still too prominent to ignore. She's sure it has nothing to do with the wound. “Give me a minute,” he mumbles, taking his hand from hers and trying to walk away.

“Hey, no. I have to see your hand and—”

“Clarke,” he croaks, like her name coming from his lips has the power to torture him from the inside. “Please leave me alone. I’ll come back in a few hours, okay? We can't leave until tomorrow anyway."

“You didn’t have to hit a wall because the idea of me being in love with you is so repulsive to you now,” she snaps, a little hurt. “The people we saw there? We are not them. And I would never make you uncomfortable, I’m so used to it that I have it under control by now. So just—stop this now.” 

He freezes and she realizes that she said too much. She steps away from him, as if burned, muttering apologies and cursing herself for being so fucking emotional and blurting it out like that when it's so obvious that he doesn’t want her like that anymore. 

“Do you...” he tries to ask from behind her, clearing his throat right after. “Do you still...?” 

“What do you think, Bellamy?”

“I don’t know.” Suddenly, he’s in front of her, but she refuses to meet his eyes. “Clarke,” he begs. “Please look at me.”

She does, hesitant and slow.

“Tell me,” he pleads. 

She just huffs, embarrassed. “Why? It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Of course it matters,” he argues, voice breaking. “Clarke, do you still love me?”

“Yes,” she answers, looking into his eyes. The intensity in his gaze is too much and she looks away. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter,” she tells him, trying and probably failing to sound nonchalant, if the way her voice shakes is anything to go by. “I’m not going to let it come between our friendship, okay? You can pretend you don’t know anything about this, that we didn’t have this conversation at all. It’s nothing new, after all. We can just pretend this never happened.”

“What if I don’t want to forget about this? What if—” He licks his lips, closes the distance between them until he’s cupping her face between his hands and she can feel the heat of his body close to hers. “What if I’m in love with you, too?”

“Don’t do that,” she begs, raising her hands until she’s placing them over his. Her intention was to make him drop them at his sides, but she doesn't succeed. “This isn’t —I don’t need your pity, Bellamy. I don’t want you to lie to me to make me feel better. I just want you to be happy and I know that you won’t get that with me.” 

“And what if I do? What if you make me happy? _What then?_ ”

She shakes her head a little, but she isn’t strong enough to part from his touch. She’s starved for it, for him and whatever he’s willing to give her. He’s looking at her with so much tenderness, and she’s finally willing to admit to herself that he’s still looks at her like he did before Praimfaya.

Finally, defeated, her eyes drop to his mouth. He knows that’s her answer and he doesn’t need her to do or say anything else before he closes the distance between them and presses his lips to hers, slow, tentatively. 

He pulls away, and his smile is blinding, eyes full of love and things she was too afraid to see before, choking in her self-loathing, convincing herself that he could never feel for her as much as she feels for him.

She knows she doesn’t deserve him. But if he wants her, if he says she can make him happy, who is she to deny him that when it’s the only thing she’s ever wanted?

If she can make him smile like that with just a kiss, how happy can she make him for a week or a year? 

How happy can she make him for their whole lives? 

“What?” he asks, his smile turning confused at the adoring expression she probably has on her face. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“Because I want to make you happy,” she whispers her thoughts, not wanting to keep them from him anymore. His entire expression softens. 

“I’ll make you happier than you’ve ever been,” he swears.

She frowns a little. “That’s not fair. I said _I_ will make you happy.”

His smile turns amused. “Do you really want our first fight to be about who wants to make the other happy?”

She huffs a little laugh. “Yeah, okay, I don’t want that.” She narrows her eyes at him. “We’ll both make each other happy. Deal?”

He shakes his head with a laugh, but he still nods after. It’s the happiest she’s ever seen him, and she _loves_ it. Her own smile widens in response, and she can’t resist it: now that she knows she can, she kisses him again. 

Bellamy sighs against her mouth and then she moves, pressing herself closer until her breasts graze his chest, hands roaming over his back and arms. 

He must’ve been waiting for something like that, because the softness of their previous is replaced by passion in an instant and she gasps into his mouth, threading her fingers through his hair when he deepens the kiss. His hands move to her waist, trembling a little with nerves.

It doesn’t feel like enough.

And then she remembers. “Your hand,” she says.

“Don’t care.”

“Bellamy,” she complains against his lips.

“It doesn’t hurt right now,” he tells her. “I’ll let you take a look at it later,” he promises, and she sighs, mumbling something about how that’s surely going to become their first fight.

Still, she decides to let go. She grasps his shirt between her fingers, pulls him even closer. He bends down to grasp her thighs and lifts her up effortlessly in his arms, making her wrap her legs around his waist, laughing a little against his lips, but letting him carry her to the bed without complaint.

She pulls at the hem of his shirt until he gets the hint and takes it off, and then she proceeds to do the same with hers. 

He swallows hard, looking down at her body, fingers tracing her neck, her arms, and the desire in his eyes is too much. He’s hesitant, and she wonders if he just doesn’t know where to start, if he wants to touch her everywhere, if he has the same needs she does right now.

“Fuck, Clarke,” he mumbles before kissing her neck, biting her gently, teasing. She moans, and he pulls away to look at her, looking dazed. “You’re beautiful.”

She can feel a blush spreading through her entire body, but she has no idea if it’s just her reaction at the compliment or the way she knows something is going to happen tonight. 

“The clothes in this world are pretty,” she says, trying to dismiss his words.

He just shakes his head. “Their clothes are pretty, yeah,” he agrees. “When we get back to Sanctum, I’ll make you whatever you want if it makes you feel as beautiful as I know you are, but this has nothing to do with clothes, Clarke. You are beautiful.”

He kisses her again, deep and dirty, and by the time he pulls away, they are both breathless. His curls are a mess, but his smile is the same one he gave her after their first kiss. 

“I love you,” she tells him, caressing his cheek.

“And I love you,” he tells her, dropping another kiss to her lips. “We have all night to ourselves. What do you want?”

“You. Everything,” she laughs a little, can’t believe this is really happening. “I don’t know. What about you?”

“Whatever the hell you want,” he answers, and she laughs loudly before his lips are on hers once again.


End file.
